January 19 - January 25, 2002
Gless is more
Cagney and Lacey's Sharon Gless loves playing den mother to Queer As Folk's irrepressible boys
by Jim Bawden
Queer As Folk. The character of Debbie just popped out at me," Gless says with a giggle. "I saw the promise. I thought this is going to be sensational. I have to do it."
Gless phoned Showtime, the U.S. network producing QAF, and "I was asked why I'd want to be in on that. It wasn't the biggest part. I was told there was no money for big salaries. But I am persistent. Here I am and already it's season number two."
Season Two of the convroversial drama about five gay men and two lesbians set in Pittsburgh revs up tonight at 10 on Showcase.
The set is a factory converted into a TV soundstage in the middle of Etobicoke. Gless's Debbie, the paunchy and loud-talking waitress, is mother to one of the boys, Michael (Hal Sparks), but den mother to the whole pack.
"The series will be lighter this year," promises executive producer Daniel Lipman.
Gless's character gets more screen time as does Jack Weatherall as her brother Vic, an older man with HIV. He'll become a short-order cook at her diner. Other plot twists: Michael will return to eventually open a comic-book store of his own. There'll be a lesbian wedding. And Brian (Gale Harold) will see if he can live with Justin (Randy Harrison).
"There aren't any better roles than this on TV," Gless says with enthusiasm, even though it's near midnight and the cast has been working for 14 hours.
Executive producer Lipman remembers the day in L.A. when Gless walked in to see him and his partner Ron Cowen. Word had gotten around town that QAF would be cutting-edge for nudity and sexual situations, and agents were warning their clients not to go in for auditions.
"We were expecting 50 actors that day to read for parts," Lipman says. "Maybe eight showed up. Then Sharon came in and we felt if we could interest her we might have something after all."
Gless says "I immediately began making a backstory for Debbie. She's a waitress, a single mother to Michael, working in a diner. I figured she was going through hairdressing when she got pregnant and her dream of owning her own salon blew up. I wanted to wear a different cheap wig in every scene but the producers said it would confuse the viewers. So I'm wearing this one all the time."
In the British original the Debbie characer, called Hazel Tyler (Denise Black), was a warm and sexy woman in her forties, a real knockout living with a man everybody called "uncle." In the North American remake "Uncle Vic" (Weatherall) is Debbie's brother, trying to regain his dignity after a long illness.
Weatherall praises Gless's spirit of cooperation. "I've done mainly theatre and she's helped me enormously adapt to the TV camera." This season Debbie will get a boyfriend played by Peter MacNeil.
Gless' presence has attracted viewers who might be skittish about watching such material. There have been comments about Debbie's weight and brashness but Gless won over a lot of people in the scene where Debbie faints from overwork.
"My wig came off and they saw the hard-working woman underneath. I made sure my real hair was darkened. I didn't want anybody saying, "Oh there's Chris Cagney."
Gless, of course, is one of American TV's icons. She and her past TV partner in crime-solving, Tyne Daly, have a huge following.
Cagney and Lacey was born in Toronto, where producer Barney Rosenzweig shot the 1981 TV-movie starring Tyne Daley and Loretta Sit as Chris Cagney. When CBS decided to turn it into a series Swit was unavailable - she was still shooting M*A*S*H. Gless replaced the second Cagney in the fall of 1982.
CBS had a new hit series on its hands ever though the network never really understood what it was about (female bonding). One CBS vice-president mused what a great show it would be if only he could substitute two guys.
Gless racked up six nominations for C&L and took the gold home in 1986 and 1987. She also garnered five Golden Globe nominations plus a 1986 win. But there was a time after the failure of her last TV series, The Trials Of Rosie O'Neill (1990-91), when she deliberately chose threatre projects over TV work. She turned down the sitcom Sister Kate and a TV version of Shirley Valentine.
This season Gless has taken an apartment in town (she flew in for her scenes last year). "I was prepared to take over from my dear Al Waxman (as the heavenly judge) on Twice in a Lifetime and Barney said he'd move here to produce the next season. But PAX TV in the U.S. cancelled it."
She thinks all her young co-stars will do "just fine" when it comes to avoiding stereotyping although Scott Lowell (Ted) says he already lost a valuable car rental commercial after a year on QAF as a gay man. Randy Harrison (Justin) and Peter Paige (Emmett) are the only "out" actors.
Gless says they're all "theatre-trained actors first and personalities second. None of us could turn this one down. Chances like this don't come up on TV very often."
